Patrol

Protesters in Seattle often deploy a tactic known as the “sleeping dragon” in which they lay down in the street to block traffic with their arms linked while inside a piece of PVC tubing. The tactic makes it difficult for police to clear the street and make arrests.

Simply cutting off the tubing runs the risk of injuring protesters, slowing the removal so much that it can take six or more hours to clear the street and take the protesters into custody.

But members of the Seattle PD’s new Apparatus Removal Team (ART) were able to separate the nine protesters Tuesday and arrest them in about an hour and a half, the Seattle Times reports.

Seattle police spokesman Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said members of ART are specially trained officers who have the knowledge, experience and equipment to cut through plastic and metal without hurting protesters. Because sleeping dragons vary in composition, the team relies on different tools, he said.

Scanner audio captured an officer’s account of what happened at the scene, CWBChicago reports: “Ten people surrounded me, indicating that they had firearms. And one person pulled him away from me, holding his waist, indicating that he would use a firearm against me.”

There were so many police officers, sheriff’s deputies and Highway Patrol troopers that the court appearance had to be moved out of Justice Court to Judge John Larson’s Courtroom Number Three on the third floor of the Missoula County Courthouse.

The vehicle pursuit ended in the town of Kittitas where Deputy Thompson was backed up by Officer Benito Chavez. The suspect exited the vehicle and exchanged shots with the two law enforcement officers.

Sarah Wilson and her boyfriend were arrested during a stop in Chesapeake after officers allegedly found drugs in the 1996 Lexus the couple were driving. Police said they handcuffed Wilson and, while attempting to apprehend her boyfriend, 27-year-old Holden Medlin, he became combative and ran away from the scene.